


The Dissident

by JeanGraham



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 09:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20423387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: Recalling Illya's first disillusionment with Mother Russia.





	The Dissident

* * *

See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>

The Dissident -- by Jean Graham

Ice stung his eyes. It had crystalized in his hair and lashes and   
stiffened the threadbare wool of his coat, but Illya no longer felt   
the cold. Even his feet, plowing through the endless frozen   
drifts, felt nothing. Nothing existed for him now but the need to   
keep on running, the need to get away.

They weren't far behind him. He'd seen them from the last rise.   
Three stolid figures in uniform coats, their rifles like triple   
antennae following his tracks in the snow. No need for them to   
hurry. They knew he couldn't run much farther. They knew he'd had   
no food, no rest, and worse, no clear idea where he was.

Somewhere south of Kirovograd. Somewhere...

"Wrong thinking, Illya Nickovetch." The words had become a litany   
to the thrashing rhythm of his feet. "Wrong thinking will one day   
be the death of you." They were words spoken four years before by   
a man called Voynia. He had spoken them to a boy of fourteen who   
had defied the rules of the Upravlenie Skola, only to find that   
such open defiance would gain him nothing. Voynia had brutally   
proven that to him: had forced him to conform to the state school's   
expectations. For a time.

"Prival! Ostanovka!"

The cracking report of a rifle echoed from behind him. Something   
spat into the snow near his feet.

"Ostanovka!" The harsh voice repeated its command. "You will   
remain where you are."

Breath clouding in the frozen air, Illya turned to look at them --   
three tireless faces beneath identical sable caps. One of them   
held the politsiya rifle that had fired the warning shot at him,   
but it did not point at the snow now.

"You are under arrest." The one who spoke wore a captain's   
insignia, and stood several inches taller than either of his   
companions. "You will come back with us now."

His breath still coming hard, Illya stubbornly stood his ground.   
"No," he said.

For a long moment, the captain's eyes assessed him, a clinical,   
unreadable stare. Then, apparently judging this game concluded, he   
turned to the man with the rifle.

"Strelba emy," he said. Shoot him.

_Wrong thinking, Illya Nickovetch. Wrong thinking will one day be _   
_the death of you..._

The rifle's long barrel moved slightly, centering on him. Illya   
took an involuntary step backward in the snow, the inane thought in   
his mind that he should try to turn, to run, to do anything other   
than stand there...

He heard the explosion of the gunshot (why did it sound wrong --   
not like the others?) and he pitched forward into the ice, amazed   
that he had felt nothing. No pain. No impact of the bullet...

The explosion came again, and suddenly he knew why it had sounded   
wrong.

Another gun. Not the rifle of the politsiya. Another gun!

He rolled over in the hard-packed ice, lifted his head to see the   
man who'd held the rifle face down in the drifts beyond him. From   
beneath his sable hat, blood ran, already staining the snow. Not   
far away, his unranked comrade lay in a similar condition, felled   
by the second shot. But who--?

Illya had no time to search for his rescuer. A sound from behind   
alerted him to the captain's approach. Turning over, he heard the   
muffled word "predagez" -- traitor -- shouted at him like a curse   
before the heavy wooden stock of the rifle jabbed at him, struck   
him, knocked him back into the grave-like impression his body had   
already made in the snow. Through the numbing cold that nothing   
had penetrated before, pain found him: a throbbing ache where the   
rifle butt had opened his cheek, and the acid taste of his own   
blood. He watched the weapon reverse itself in the officer's   
gloved hands, saw it coming to bear on him...

Then the report of the other gun came again. The captain opened   
his mouth to scream, but could not complete the sound. He   
stiffened, as though somehow he'd intended to turn on his   
attackers. Then his hands released the rifle, let it plunge into   
the snow. With a heavy crunching sound, he fell on top of it.

Voices. Shouts. Someone coming. Illya could hear feet thrashing   
through the drifts.

He tried to roll over, to force himself up far enough to see them.   
But his hands refused to move. His legs, like something leaden,   
weighed him down, rooted him. Shadows had begun to descend on him:   
darkness, like a tunnel, closed in on every side until he could no   
longer see the white all around him.

Soon, even the sound of his rescuers' voices had faded into   
nothing...

Two days, four... How long since he had fled Kirovograd? How many   
days had they pursued him across the ice? Illya couldn't remember.

He slept, and dreamed of Karl Ivan Dmitriov and the weeks they had   
recently spent in Kirovograd, assembling smuggled notes in the   
dimly-lit confines of the printer's basement. Notes from the   
prisoners of the northern gulags. Dmitriov had planned to compile   
the letters into a single manuscript, and to somehow smuggle that   
into the hands of an English or American diplomat.

"You should not really be here," Dmitriov had said in the   
beginning, and he'd always stroked the thin grey streaks in his   
beard when he spoke. "You are too young to risk the remainder of   
your days in a gulag."

Illya, ignoring the comment, had continued the rapid scratching of   
his pen on the paper in front of him. "I have completed two more   
pages," he said.

Dmitriov had nodded slowly. "Yes, of course. What other man do I   
know, young or old, with such knowledge of languages and ciphers?   
Who else would help me to disguise this book as nothing more than   
harmless diplomatic guidelines? You are a godsend, Illya   
Nickovetch, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not."

Embarrassed, Illya had glanced at him for the briefest of moments   
before returning with renewed vigor to his task. "I will finish   
one more page for you tonight," he said.

The pounding on the door above had cut across his speech.

"Atkryt dver!" a muffled voice had demanded. "Politsiya!"

Illya only dimly remembered scrambling through the casement window,   
pausing while Dmitriov had frantically gathered the all-important   
letters and crowded them into the oversized pocket of his coat.   
They'd run into the snow, into the dark, the cold, the driving   
wind, and angry voices had come close behind them. Two rifle shots   
sent missiles whining over their heads. A third, no longer   
concerned with warnings, had struck Karl Ivan Dmitriov in the leg.   
Illya had stumbled, fallen, and struggled up again to turn and   
start back, intending to help Dmitriov. But something had thunked   
into the snow beside him, spraying ice chips into his eyes. He   
dropped, found the feeble protection of a rock wall half-buried in   
the snow, and for a moment, huddled behind it. He glimpsed two   
uniformed men dragging Dmitriov between them back toward the print   
shop. Three more coated figures were rushing in Illya's direction,   
rifles ready.

Illya ran. South, into the ice. Two days, three days, four. In   
the weary, sleepless monotony of cold, he'd quickly lost track of   
the hours, forgotten the progressions of darkness and light.

There had been nothing but the need to get away. And all the while   
a part of him had cried that he should have turned back. He should   
have fought to take Dmitriov from them.

Should have tried...

_The death of you, Illya Nickovetch... The death of you..._

Gradually, Illya grew aware that he was no longer cold, and that   
something soft and yielding lay beneath him. A mattress... covered   
with coarse, homespun sheets. The taste of stale blood lingered in   
the back of his throat: the odor of a wood fire assailed his   
nostrils. From somewhere, voices argued in hushed tones. A man's   
voice... and a woman's.

Illya forced his eyes to open, to study the room around him. It   
was small, wood-paneled, sparsely furnished in the rustic manor of   
a farmhouse. Dusty sunlight filtered through drawn linen curtains,   
and the voices, still arguing, came from beyond the half-open door.

Illya sat up, slid off the bed, and saw the motion duplicated in a   
wood-framed mirror standing near the headboard. His reflection in   
the glass appeared unreal to him, like one's indistinct self-image   
in a dream. The young stranger in the mirror looked wan, unwashed,   
a too-thin ghost with limp blond hair and an ugly gash marring one   
pale cheek. Illya turned his back on it and moved, quietly, to the   
door.

The half-whispered argument ceased abruptly when he appeared in the   
doorway. A dark, stocky man rose from the wooden table to greet   
him, a man whose face, though it was bearded now, he recognized.

"Illya, _moy druk! _I am glad you are awake."

"Hello, Sergei. It's been a long time."

"Too long, my friend."

Still seated at the table, a woman with long red hair glared up at   
them, green eyes a picture of distrust. Illya wondered what they   
had been arguing about.

"You continue a thorn in the side of the pozitsiya, I see," he   
said.

"Fortunate for you that I do." Sergei clapped a large hand to his   
shoulder. "Come," he said, and guided Illya toward the table.   
"Sit with us. Katra, bring our guest some of your vareniki and a   
glass of kvass. I have no doubt he is starving."

"He is also very curious," Illya said. He watched the woman called   
Katra move taciturnly to the cook stove just beyond them, where she   
began ladling food onto three waiting plates. The stove, Illya   
realized, had been the source of the wood-burning aroma, as well as   
the far more pleasant smells of baking bread and vareniki. Until   
now, he'd nearly succeeded in forgetting the demands of his   
stomach.

"Ah, questions." Sergei took a seat across from him, and folded his   
thick hands. "I have missed you, Illya Nickovetch. The year we...   
worked... together was a memorable one. For us as well as for the   
pozitsiya, eh? You were still very much a boy then. But that,   
of course, has changed."

"Nostalgia is all well and good, Sergei. But it does not answer   
questions."

The bearded man shook a finger at him, mocking. "You should have   
more respect for a man who has just saved your life. " The silent   
Katra placed steaming plates of food in front of them and went back   
to pour the kvass from an ancient-looking ewer into three metal   
cups.

"It is a good thing I like you," Sergei went on, his mouth already   
full. "Because of that, I will tell you how we happened to be   
here, and why we took you from the pozitsiya. Of course, we did   
not know it was you..."

Katra put the cups on the table before them with more vigor than   
was necessary, and took her own place beside Sergei, who pointed a   
fork at her. "My Katra and I," he said, "we are a part of   
Svoboda."

Illya stared at him, unbelieving. Svoboda was a notorious band   
of marauding dissidents, a primary target of both the pozitsiya  
and the KGB.

"What is wrong?" Sergei wondered. "You do not believe this?"

"What does svoboda want with me? I have done nothing to--"

Sergei interrupted him. "That, my friend, is not entirely true.   
You were helping Karl Ivan Dmitriov to encode the gulag letters,   
were you not?"

Illya took a swallow of the warm kvass, pointedly not replying.

"No matter," Sergei said. "In truth, Illya Nickovetch, we had   
hoped to snatch Dmitriov himself from them today. But..."

Illya's eyes widened suddenly with interest. "Why didn't you?" he   
asked.

Sergei took a deliberate breath before answering. "I am sorry," he   
said, though the words didn't sound at all sincere. "But our   
sources have confirmed that Karl Dmitriov is dead."

Illya's stomach tightened. "How?"

"Does it matter? You are the only man outside a gulag to have read   
those letters. The politsiya will now be all the more anxious to   
silence you."

"I do not have the letters."

  
"No. But you have read them. That is enough."

A sound came from outside the cabin. The rumble of an engine.

Smiling, Sergei moved to the door. "Do not worry," he assured   
Illya. "It is only our compatriots with the truck. They've come   
to take us to... a safe place."

Katra's fork clattered noisily to her plate. When Illya's   
questioning gaze fell on her, she looked away.

"You will wait here," Sergei said to them both, and in a moment, he   
had vanished out the door.

Katra gathered dishes from the table and carried them in silence to   
the old-fashioned sink.

"What is wrong?" Illya asked her. "Why were the two of you   
arguing, before?"

"We were not arguing." The lie was shallow, transparent, and she   
seemed to know it. But she made no effort to rectify it, either.   
Outside, the rumble of the truck's engine grew louder.

"Where will they take us?"

Avoiding his eyes, she cleared the last of the dishes from the   
table. "You will have to learn," she said, "not to ask so many   
questions." Plates rattled in the sink in front of her. "Your coat   
is in the bedroom. You will need it."

Four men, besides Sergei and himself, rode in the canvas-covered   
rear of the ancient truck. It smelled of rust and old grease, and   
the rotted portions of the canopy admitted the frigid cold.

There had been no introductions made. Not even the thick-muscled   
driver who had taken Katra into the cab with him had bothered to   
offer Illya his name. Apparently, Svoboda disdained amenities.

Not forty minutes after they had started out, the truck lurched to   
a stop. For the second time that day, Sergei said to him, "Wait   
here." Then he and his four silent companions disappeared through   
the soiled flap of the canopy. Illya could hear the crunch of   
their boots in the snow, more subdued voices, and then, from a   
distance, Katra's voice, once again arguing with Sergei.

A glance through the canvas flap at first showed him nothing but an   
open field of white, broken only by sparse, scrubby trees and the   
rutted tracks of the truck's broad tires on the road behind them.   
But north of them, several yards beyond a sloping rise that flanked   
the road, Illya saw the barb-tipped corner of a chain link fence --   
and a man in the uniform coat of the pozitsiya.

"You can stop this thing now," he heard Katra's voice plead from   
somewhere near the front of the truck. "Before it has gone any   
further!"

"Spokoinia, kozdunya!" Sergei swore at her. "I will hear no   
more. No more!"

Boots tramped the slushy ice beside the truck, coming back toward   
Illya. He slipped over the tailgate and dropped onto the road in   
time to meet the approaching Sergei, who looked less than pleased   
at his action.

"I told you to stay in the truck," he said gruffly.

"I want to know what is happening, Sergei. Why have we come here,   
to the pozitsiya?"

"Sergei!" A man Illya had not seen before appeared from somewhere,   
breathing hard, a hunting rifle slung across his narrow shoulders.   
"Mikael is here," he reported. "I saw him just now, at the fence."

Sergei's eyes narrowed. "How many guards?" he asked.

"Only four, as you specified."

"And they have agreed to the exchange?"

Glancing briefly at Illya, the man nodded. "They have agreed."

Unflinching, Sergei's eyes met Illya's. "As I told you," he said,   
"you are a valuable man. Worth enough to ransom our comrade, at   
any rate."

Illya took one step toward him, but drew up short when the muzzle   
of an automatic pistol appeared from under Sergei's coat.

"I am sorry, _moy druk._ But you will have to come with me now."

Illya did not move. "I'm not going anywhere," he said.

More figures materialized around them -- the men from the truck,   
the driver, and Katra. She glared sullenly at Sergei, but as   
before, would not meet Illya's gaze. Knowing now that she had   
argued in his defense made him resent her no less for having said   
nothing to warn him.

"Walk, my young friend," Sergei said from behind the gun. "Or I   
swear to you, we will knock you out and carry you."

When Illya still made no move to obey, one of Sergei's men grabbed   
the collar of his coat and shoved him, forcing him to walk north,   
toward the rise. The svoboda followed, pausing only when they'd   
crested the incline and come within full sight of the uniformed men   
who waited at the fence juncture a scant one-hundred yards away.   
They held a tall, emaciated man between them: the captured   
dissident Mikael.

Illya's eyes swept quickly left to right, surveying nonexistent   
escape routes. To the west, a naked field of snow, dyed faintly   
orange by the approaching sunset. North, the land confined behind   
the fence, apparently a military or politsiya training compound.   
East, a field of snow-capped rocks, and beyond that, a stand of   
leafless trees that had not been visible from the road.

No cover.

Nowhere to run.

Insane, he knew, even to think it. To run now would only be to die.

_"You have seen the letters,"_ Sergei had said. _"That is _  
_enough. The politsiya will now be all the more anxious to silence _  
_you."_

The man gripping his collar released it, gave him a final hard   
shove toward the fence.

"Zodit," he said. Walk.

A hundred yards away, Mikael began a tortured shuffle in the   
oncoming direction.

They approached one another in tense silence, the slush of ice   
beneath their feet the only sound. Illya watched one of the   
uniformed men peer long and hard at him before leaning over to   
speak to the others. Illya could read his words without having to   
hear them.

_It is the one_, he had said. _I saw him with Dmitriov._

The others nodded curtly, and as one, their hands moved into the   
bulky folds of their coats. Four rifles came up. The men   
flattened at once to the ground. Illya shouted, trying to warn the   
ambling Mikael. There would be no exchange. They had waited only   
to be certain of the prisoner's identity, and now they would kill   
both him and the hated svoboda with him.

Illya dropped before the first of the rifle shots exploded. He   
heard Mikael cry out, heard the shouts and return fire coming from   
Sergei's men. He rolled to his right, burrowing into the snow as   
bullets slapped into the ice around him. Three, four, five times.   
The fifth shot sent fire through the sleeve of his coat and into   
his left arm. Heedless of it, he somehow scrambled to his feet and   
ran toward the rocks, into the stand of naked trees. The screams   
of the dying echoed behind him, but he felt no remorse for the   
svoboda, or for the four politsiya who would most likely die   
attempting to destroy them. Let them kill one another. He didn't   
care. He had only to hope that none of them survived to follow him   
into the trees.

  
Hours passed before he finally stopped running. Hours in which the   
voices he had thought to be pursuing him became nothing more than   
his footsteps, and the rasp of his own tortured breathing.

Blood soaked the left sleeve of his torn coat and ran in a warm red   
stream down his fingers to drip into the snow. He paid it no   
attention. He would walk until he found some shelter or died: it   
didn't really matter to him which. But if he did survive, he swore   
to himself, he was going to find a way out of this harsh,   
uncompromising homeland, to some place where "wrong thinking" would   
no longer be a threat to him.

He would find a way out. And he would do it alone, without friends   
or aides or allies who could not be fully trusted. It would be   
many years before Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin would come to trust   
another human being.

Alone, because that was how he'd always been, he walked on through   
the frozen wilderness that was somewhere south of Kirovograd.

\-- End --


End file.
